The Scope and Content includes information on the William McKinley Collection (GA-29) and an artificial collection listing all William and Ida (Saxton) McKinley correspondence, documents, speeches, and miscellaneous items held by the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.

William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, the son of William and Nancy (Allison) McKinley. He briefly attended Allegheny College, but returned to Niles and taught school. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted as a private in the Twenty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry where he met Rutherford B. Hayes. He was mustered out at war’s end as a brevet major. During his entire political career, he was known as "Major" McKinley. Following the war, he studied law and in 1867 was admitted to the Ohio bar. He opened an office in Canton, Ohio, where he maintained a home until his death.

Active in the Republican Party, McKinley was elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County in 1869. Two years later, he married Ida Saxton, the daughter of a Canton banker. They were the parents of two daughters, but both died in childhood. Grief over their tragic loss of their daughters coupled with epilepsy transformed Ida McKinley into an invalid. Devoted to his wife, McKinley lavished attention and affection on her for the remainder of their lives.

In 1876, McKinley won a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives where he became a strong supporter of the protective tariff. Popular among House members and a gifted speaker, McKinley was named to the powerful Ways and Means Committee in 1880. After fourteen years in the House of Representatives, McKinley served two terms as Ohio’s governor. His friendship with Ohio industrialist Mark Hanna helped propel him to the presidency. Expecting an easy victory, McKinley was unprepared for the nation’s enthusiasm for Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan running on a free-silver platform. Rather than compete with Bryan, who toured the country, McKinley conducted a "front-porch" campaign in Canton, giving effective speeches on the dangers of free silver. Hanna raised nearly four million dollars for McKinley’s campaign. Millions of pamphlets, campaign advertising, and party speakers turned the tide, and McKinley won with a decisive victory.

McKinley proved an effective, forceful executive who expanded the office of the presidency through better press relations and efficient use of staff and travel. Foreign policy issues dominated the McKinley administration. The Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule brought public pressure on the administration to support Cuban insurgents. In the hundred-day Spanish American War, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet, seized Manilla in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico. After a tour of the country, McKinley detected an imperialist sentiment and decided to annex the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. McKinley also paved the way for the building of the Panama Canal and established the Open Door Policy with China. McKinley exercised the war powers act in 1900 to protect American interests in China. He sent troops to China to aid trapped Europeans during the Boxer Rebellion.

After the death of his vice-president, McKinley chose Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate in his bid for a second term. He won another decisive victory over Bryan. During the summer of 1901, McKinley toured the country; in September he visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. On September 5th, he was shot while giving a speech in Buffalo by self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He died eight days later and was buried in Canton, Ohio. American National Biography.

The collection (GA-29) consists of seven volumes of transcripts of telegrams kept in diary form by Benjamin F. Montgomery, White House telegrapher, between January 24,1898, and June 15, 1902. While some telegrams relate to the Spanish-American War, Philippine Insurrection, and Boxer Rebellion, others are from the period after McKinley’s death during the Theodore Roosevelt administration.

The inventory that follows is an item-level description of an artificial collection of all incoming and outgoing correspondence, speeches, documents, and miscellaneous items associated with William and Ida (Saxton) McKinley and held in fifteen manuscript collections by the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. The bulk of the correspondence appears in the Rutherford B. Hayes Papers and the Arthur L. Conger Papers (GA-12). Correspondence between Hayes and McKinley, consisting of nearly one hundred letters, began during the Civil War and continued through the fall of 1892. The Arthur L. Conger Papers contain thirty-five letters from McKinley to Conger written between the years 1883 and 1895.